Morgan B. Stark - Founder

Morgan B. Stark is Chairman of Ramius Alternative Investments and Head of Macro Trading Strategy. He is responsible for overseeing the firm's multi-strategy investment platform. From 1994 to 2009, Mr. Stark was a Founder, Managing Member and member of the firm's Executive Committee of Ramius LLC.

Mr. Stark attended the Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations School and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from New York University. He served for 3 ½ years in the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 1963, he started his business career in the Chase Manhattan Bank Municipal Department and received a comprehensive grounding in syndicate management, general obligation, discount note and bond trading and sales management. In 1970, Mr. Stark was named sales and syndicate manager of the Primary Government Dealership and promoted to vice president to build a domestic and international distribution team and to manage the Federal Agency Underwriting and Selling Group participations. In 1975, Mr. Stark was named Manager of the Government Dealership and proprietary-trading desk.

In 1979, Mr. Stark joined Chemical Bank as Senior Vice President and Treasury Department Deputy Head. He had senior management responsibility of the Capital Market's Primary Government and Municipal Dealerships, Public Finance, Retail Securities Distribution, Asset Sales and Bank Funding, Liability Management and Portfolio Departments. He also managed the marketing and investment-related products for foreign institutions and a related multi-billion dollar asset management program. Mr. Stark was promoted to Executive Vice President in 1984 and served on the Bank's Asset & Liability Policy and Management Committees. In 1986, Mr. Stark was appointed senior officer in charge of the Private Banking Group to build assets, improve investment performance and grow fee income for the Global Group. In 1988, Mr. Stark returned to the Capital Markets Group. In 1989, he became President and CEO of Chemical Securities, Inc., a Section 20 securities subsidiary. He, in addition, supervised the discretionary management of foreign client funds until January 1993.

In 1993, Mr. Stark joined the Granite Capital International Group as portfolio manager and Managing Director to develop a non-correlating investment management business. As such, Mr. Stark was directly responsible for trading, back office, asset raising and client services. In July of 1995, he and Thomas W. Strauss joined Ramius as partners with Peter A. Cohen in the development of Ramius' investment management business.

Mr. Stark is a member of the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is the former Chairman and member of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Bond Market Association. He served on this Committee for 24 years.

Mr. Stark's industry and philanthropic activities include his position as member of the Investment Committee for the American Heart Association - Heritage Affiliate and President of the Board of Directors of the Perlman Music Program. He previously served as President, Vice President, and member of the Board of Directors of the Dealer Bank Association and as a trustee to various charitable organizations.